Radio giant Rush Limbaugh is scorching the leader of the Roman Catholic Church for criticizing unfettered capitalism, saying, “This is just pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the pope.”
“You know the pope, Pope Francis has issued an official papal proclamation, and it’s sad,” Limbaugh said on his national broadcast Wednesday. “It’s actually unbelievable. It’s sad because this pope makes it very clear he doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to capitalism and socialism and so forth.”
“I’m not Catholic,” Limbaugh added, “but up until this I admired the man.”
In the 84-page document titled “Evangelii Gaudium” which was released Tuesday, Pope Francis called upon politicians to provide “dignified work, education and health care” to all citizens.

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“The commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life,” wrote the pope. “Today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills.”

Noting that he’d visited the Vatican “numerous times,” Limbaugh observed wryly, “Believe me, it wouldn’t exist without tons of money. Somebody has either written this for [the pope] or gotten to him. This is pure Marxism.”

Pope Francis

The radio host commented on the pope’s statements while reading excerpts from the document. As far as Pope Francis’ call on governments to increase their job creation efforts, Limbaugh countered, “No government can create jobs. All they can do is hamper job creation.”
The pope also exhorted the rich to share their wealth with the poor, but, Limbaugh noted, Americans are already among the world’s most generous charitable donors, and beside that, “charity cannot compete with capitalism when it comes to bringing people out of poverty.”
Limbaugh added, “An honest objective look at the history of the United States is all you need to understand true capitalism is all about,” calling the pope’s critique of capitalism “totally, dramatically, embarrassing wrong.”
The radio host returned after a commercial break with additional thoughts, reminding listeners that the pope’s predecessor, John Paul II, is widely credited with helping President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher defeat of Soviet-sponsored communism back in the 1980s.
“There has been a longstanding tension between the church and communism,” Limbaugh observed. “That’s what makes this to me really remarkable unfettered anti-capitalist dictate. This would have been unthinkable for a pope to believe or say just a few years ago.
Limbaugh noted that the Catholic Church in the United States has a $170 billion budget, and that the Church is also “the largest landowner in Manhattan.”
“They have a lot of money,” Limbaugh said. “They wouldn’t be able to reach out the way they do without a lot of money.”

by DR. SUSAN BERRY29 Nov 2013, 5:16 PM PDT421POST A COMMENTA spokesman for the liberal organization Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG) has posted on the group’s website a denunciation of what he states were “incendiary remarks about Pope Francis” by conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh on Wednesday.

Limbaugh said that Pope Francis was wrong in his apostolic exhortation released this week in which he appears to blame capitalism for the reason why people are poor in the world.CACG’s Christopher Jolly Hale wrote on Wednesday:

Catholics of all political stripes are disturbed by Rush Limbaugh's incendiary comments this afternoon about Pope Francis. To call the Holy Father a proponent of "pure marxism" is both mean spirited and naive. Francis's critique of unrestrained capitalism is in line with the Church's social teaching. His particular criticism of "trickle down economics" strengthens what Church authorities have said for decades: any economic system which deprives the poor of their dignity has no place within a just society.
Contrary to what Mr. Limbaugh suggests, the Catholic Church isn't built on money, but on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ.
We call on Mr. Limbaugh to apologize and retract his remarks. We urge other Church organizations and leaders--both ordained and lay--to also condemn Mr. Limbaugh's comments.
We proudly stand with Pope Francis as he provides prophetic leadership for the Catholic Church and the entire world.

Following the release of the pope’s exhortation, entitled Evangelii Gaudium, Hale wrote:

Pope Francis's words have given new vigor to what the Church has been saying for decades: 'trickle down economics' and other economic agendas which work against the poor and promote inequality have no place in a just society. Pope Francis's words should have particular resonance here in the United States as we enter into next month's budget negotiations. The pope makes it clear that these budgetary decisions should above all else benefit the poorest of Americans.
We make Pope Francis's words our own: "I beg the Lord gives us more politicians who are genuinely disturbed by the state of society, the people and the lives of the poor!"

In many ways, this is traditional Catholic teaching about economic justice that builds on the foundations laid in the first social encyclical about capital and labor released in 1891 by Pope Leo XIII. But to contemporary American ears accustomed to hearing full-throated Catholic arguments only when it comes to abortion and same sex marriage, this unequivocal economic critique of unfettered markets packs a punch.

Directing his comments at Republicans Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Paul Ryan, Gehring said that while they “slash billions from nutrition programs and are daily communicants in the church of free-market fundamentalism, Pope Francis rejects trickle-down economics as a moral and practical failure.”

Pope Francis unveiled an 84-page apostolic exhortation, a document that lays out the platform for his papacy, and some passages have ignited passion in the left-wing blogosphere; namely, its condemnations of the “new tyranny” of “unfettered capitalism.”

Ironically, many of the atheistic socialists who smugly condemn Christians for Creationism and other beliefs held aloft the Papal manuscript up like a revelation. Reason reported:

Among the other items laying out a political agenda for the new Pope was an exhortation for governments to guarantee all citizens “dignified work, education and healthcare.” As the Pope should well know, this may require forced labor, central planning of people’s lives by bureaucrats (certainly something that philosophically runs contrary to “free will“) and the erection of a god-state that would necessarily be founded on the arrogance of tyrannical men, and not on the will of God.

Furthermore, the Pope, who has been called a “progressive” who supports “Liberation Theology,” must be unaware of the vast alleviation of poverty due to the spread of capitalism, and not due to the initiatives of governments or the United Nations.

“The world is witnessing a[n] epochal ‘global rebalancing’ with higher growthin at least 40 poor countries helping lift hundreds of millions out of poverty and into a new ‘global middle class,’” the report said, according to the UK Guardian. “Never in history have the living conditions and prospects of so many people changed so dramatically and so fast.”

Higher economic growth – not social welfare payments or wealth redistribution – is alleviating poverty for millions. As a Yale Global article from 2011 put it:

These [pro-economic growth] factors are manifestations of a set of broader trends – the rise of globalization, the spread of capitalism and the improving quality of economic governance – which together have enabled the developing world to begin converging on advanced economy incomes after centuries of divergence. The poor countries that display the greatest success today are those that are engaging with the global economy, allowing market prices to balance supply and demand and to allocate scarce resources, and pursuing sensible and strategic economic policies to spur investment, trade and job creation. It’s this potent combination that sets the current period apart from a history of insipid growth and intractable poverty.

An economic model that allows people to voluntarily cooperate is not only commensurate with free will, but it forestalls government tyranny and oppression of the kind that ravaged millions throughout the 20th century. Not to mention the free market has led to prosperity for millions, and the betterment of the world’s poor. That is something the Pope should support, not condemn.